Data and tech aid creative, but people come first

While the focus of conversation in the marketing industry today may have headed towards automation, and the rise of technology and data, the truth is, the lifeblood of the marketing industry remains creativity. And it would serve marketers well not to forget that. 

In a recent webinar hosted by MARKETING-INTERACTIVE in partnership with Celtra, Ken Mandel, regional managing director and head of GrabAds and brand insights, shared that while the marketing industry has possibly over indexed on data, creativity shouldn’t be taking a back seat. Nor should it be thought of as the sole responsibility of the marketing function, he argued. 

He said that with media placements and channels exploding, creativity, unfortunately, has had a hard time keeping up. And just like how marketers are now talking about the democratisation of data, creativity, too, should be seen in a similar manner. 

“Creativity is obviously something that can come from anywhere in the company, not just the marketing team. And I think it’s pretty important that we all realise that,” he said. 

Mandel added that for ads and brands to truly resonate with consumers today, creativity has to go alongside context. 

“If you separate the two, you do end up with where the industry has gone in the past several years, which is a programmatic mess and mediocre media placements that follow you around the internet,” he said. 

Adding to his point, Alex Chan, head of marketing at Geneco, shared that marketers should realise that despite the conversations around tech and data, the fundamentals haven’t really changed. Data should be used as a supplement to turbocharge creativity.

“We should use data in a way to better understand our audience and amplify our ideas better, and engage more people,” he said.

Chan added that while marketers often try to deep-dive into the granular, they have to remain cognisant that they need to manage the data, and not let the data manage them.

“Anybody today can register a company. But what sets a brand and businesses apart is that a brand tells a story, and therefore has values and a mission for the people, and a vision for the company,” he said.

That’s where the power of creativity and brand comes in – to sell the story and to convince consumers to come along for the ride.

The next frontier

In the marketing industry, we can’t talk about the next frontier of creativity without addressing the need in finding the right talent. Over the years, the marketing and creative industry has felt a talent crunch given that many young talented individuals often enter the industry only to leave disgruntled – either unable to follow their passion or keep up with the high volume of work. So how do we attract and retain our best creative talent?

According to Raushida Vasaiwala, GM of Celtra Asia Pacific, it isn’t uncommon to see design teams working long hours and weekends. According to Celtra’s research, one of the areas that stand out, is that on average, most designers spend 70% of their time working on mundane adaptations, or repetitive admin duties. Only 30% of their time is spent on concept building and design.

“The end goal for companies and design teams is to come up with better concepts and better ideas. And if you want to find that hidden gem, it takes time,” she said.

“So companies need to find ways to give back precious time to employees and not have them spend it on doing repetitive mundane tasks.”

Vasaiwala, however, noted that there are many companies who have been actively trying to find that balance. While in the past, most conversations she has had with clients were around speed of content creation and volume of assets, today the conversation has shifted to prioritising teams’ mental wellbeing, and time to ensure the most productive outcomes.

“One of the reasons they assess creative automation platforms today is to evaluate how much more bandwidth these tools can create for the designers,” she said.

Vincent Ruaz, deputy director of brand and digital marketing at M1, shared that M1 has been using Celtra’s creative automation tools, in collaboration with its creative agencies, to rework creative processes.

He added that his approach to marketing is to use data science and build a model which takes into consideration all brand metrics – from top-of-mind; aided and unaided awareness; brand sentiment and overall perception; brand consideration; sales volume as well as platform data; and benchmarks on which to pilot a brand.

Moreover, the company also includes consumers to shape its creative outputs.

“We are now enabling consumers to actually be part of our brand by creating their own content and drive the content,” he said.

This not only helps them embrace the brand as part of their lives, it also helps consumers feel seen and part of the greater ecosystem.

“We create content to inspire, to build up our brand identity and share our brand values,” he said.